Understanding depression

Sometimes when people are hungry, they will want to point out how hungry they are by declaring that they are "starving".

The human body could go up to a month without eating any food. It is not a healthy thing to do of course, but that is the fact of the human body. You would need water. No water for around ten days would be fatal. But the human body can go without food for around 30 days after all the stored fats, glucose, muscle mass and tissue have all become used...that is when your body will shut down. So when people claim that they are "starving" when they have gone a few hours without food is just a very exaggerated term.

People also use a term for when they feel down. That they are "depressed".

"That shop didn't have the ring in my size. It's well depressing".

"It's depressing watching them play football like that".

"It's so depressing that this place is going to close down".

These are all terms that I have heard people say today. Of course, they are all exaggerated. And it kind of annoyed me.  Should people be allowed to say they are depressed for such reasons? Is that not undermining what is a severe illness?

I am very ashamed to say that I do and have not treated mental health as seriously as I should have. I always used to think that when it came to mental health, something like depression for example, why would a person let that take over them? Surely the mindset could be strong enough to cope with such a silly thing? Surely if you were depressed, you could force yourself to get up and do something about it and live your life and become mentally stronger? And that this could make you a stronger person? After all, what if someone wasn't diagnosed with depression? They wouldn't know any better. So how could they not at least try to live their life to the fullest if they had no clue that their setbacks they suffer in their minds was actually an illness?

But if you don't understand it, then how can you make decisions about it? How can you judge it? And also, if you were depressed, but you weren't diagnosed as depressed-in other words if you hadn't been to the doctor-what happens then?

I don't understand it...Or do I understand it better than I think?

It is normal for everyone to feel down at some point. This is life. But if feeling down got in the way of actually doing everyday things in life-then this could be depression. And I have felt like that myself a lot of the times. I am sure that there are a lot of people who haven't been diagnosed with depression that have and are going through this right this very minute.

So far, it is still a bit of a taboo subject. People do not seem to be exploring this illness as much as they probably should be. It seems to be kind of pushed to the side. One example being the anti-depressants. It seems that they are just prescribed by doctors to "help cope" with depression but in my own personal opinion, I have to ask the question whether this is just a case of accepting things rather than getting to the root of the problem. Also with bipolar disorder-which is also known as manic depression (where your mood can gradually go from one extreme to the other and your behaviour may be impulsive and you would be very hyper and have little or no sleep), anti-depressants can actually be worse for you.

People often mistake feeling sadness is depression. This is not necessarily the case. Depression can be down swings in mood, emptiness, restlessness, being irritable and/or short tempered.

You kind of lose interest in pleasurable things.
Your behaviour can become very reckless.
You have problems concentrating.
Your body aches. You have no energy.

There are some very interesting facts about depression too. Depression rates for women are double than that of those in men but men have a higher suicide risk. As well as this, men apparently are more reluctant to admit that they are feeling like this. So could talking about it be very beneficial?

So how would someone put up with mood swings, sadness with no explanation and feelings of suicide and not wanting to face the world? Is there are an actual cure for all this? Apparently not. Anti-depressants have so many side effects that people actually feel worse for a long time before they actually supposedly start to feel better-that is what they say however in my opinion, it is just your body and mind getting used to them-not so long ago, someone was diagnosed with depression, was given anti-depressants and then that poor person committed suicide. So what does a person with depression do to beat this? Is it even possible to do so?

And what does all this do to a person who would know someone close to them who is suffering from depression? Whether it has been diagnosed or not? Not only is it difficult actually having depression, but it is also difficult dealing with a person who has depression. I very much now believe that depression could also be contagious. Imagine if you care for someone with depression? How would it make you feel if no matter what you did. no matter what you said or anything you could do for them just didn't matter? How would that make you feel?? It would make you feel really down. It would make you feel empty. It would make you feel like there is no point.

Maybe I will continue this on another blog post. I don't know, But right now, I believe that depression MUST come from somewhere. Whether it be something very obvious that had recently happened to you or whether it is an underlying sadness from something that could have happened to you in the past but has affected you and is still affecting you because you never dealt with it and are still having trouble coming to terms with it. Maybe it is that long ago that you have even forgotten what it is. It is at the back of your mind, hidden away under a million other thoughts you have had since then.

Maybe getting to the root of the problem and dealing with it is the key.

From the research that I have done, for anyone that is suffering from depression, get help. Talk to someone. Statistics say that talking to someone helps. On a good day, make the decision to get help BEFORE you have a bad day. Because it is not just yourself that is hurting.

 It is the people that care about you who are suffering too.

A trip to the cinema

Until last week, I had not been to the cinema in over five years. And I might as well  had not bothered going.

I watched Batman V Superman. Two of the biggest and most iconic fictional characters in one movie! Going against each other as the title may suggest. How exciting for us comic book fans and also for the millions of people who have jumped onto the comic book bandwagon all of a sudden as it seems to have become part of some kind of fashion that is currently going on. I wrote on my last post how Marvel were ruining comic book characters by creating such awful, pathetic, horrid disgraceful movies. Well, it looks like DC are doing the same with this pathetic dire excuse of a film.

But I am not here to review the movie itself.  It's each to their own. If you like bad acting, no plot-just a lot of awful sub plots, silly characterisation, a script that seemed like it was written by dimwits, and if all you're interested in is special effects and an explosion and nonsensical poo then by all means go and watch this movie. Otherwise, if  you have a brain then don't bother.

I am actually here to write the cinema experience. And how terrible and strange that was too.

First of all, I booked tickets through a very convenient cinema website. You could even choose your seats from the ones that were available! Again, more excitement that was unbearably difficult to contain.

So you could choose to be in "regular" seats. This cost quite a bit I noticed. But they were "regular". So what are the next ones? IMAX! What exactly is IMAX? I was not too sure. The tickets for IMAX were more pricey. I had heard of it and a quick explanation given to me made me choose to actually go for the IMAX tickets...But...wait...there was more. There was 3D IMAX SUPER EXTRAVAGANZA. Now this meant that you could watch the movie and enjoy it in the most amazing way possible-even more pricey of course. Another quick explanation and the fact that there were 3D glasses that I could borrow to experience this made me not choose the 3D IMAX SUPER EXTRAVAGANZA but just the IMAX. As I had not been to the cinema in such a long time, I figured I might as well go a bit crazy but not too crazy. Still insane prices for cinema tickets but what the hell.

I like nachos, I really like nachos and jalapeños. On the day of the cinema I wanted to get these. When I got to the cinema and looked at the prices, I was shocked...but it was OK For the price of an hour and a half of work at a minimum wage job, you MUST get A TON of nachos that would last until well after the movie was over. But what I received was a small amount of triangles on a small tray with a small amount of jalapeños that seemed...pointless. I went large too. This was supposed to be large...an hour and a half of working minimum wage and I got...this...with a post mix drink...no wonder people are so depressed.

But put all that to one side-IT WAS MOVIE TIME. A few trailers into it and then a whisper in my ear "put your glasses on". But I don't wear glasses? Oh! The 3D glasses. This was my first time. It was really odd, looking around and seeing everybody take their out the glasses and put them on. They all looked like complete brain washed zombies. and I was about to become one too. I put the glasses on.

It did not feel right and at first I did not notice any difference and kept glancing over the rim of them and back through them to see if there was any difference. There was! The leaves actually looked like they were falling out of the screen and into the auditorium! It looked like you could reach out and pat the horses bottom! The fireballs looked like they were going to come out of the screen and burn us!

After fifteen minutes, the excitement of the glasses had worn off, just like the excitement of the film, just like the excitement of the whole evening.

The main problem was that even if the movie was a good, even if it was exciting and had me hooked and made me enjoy myself, I still do not think that would have saved the evening. I could not believe how silly the whole thing was. From the overpriced tickets, to the overpriced food, to the over brain washed zombies...I do not encourage illegal activity, but it is no surprise that a lot of people are downloading/streaming movies. These people probably cannot afford to go. And there is no guarantee the movie would be good! The only guarantee is that you will get overcharged and to think how much money these movies make! How much money these actors make is actually quite disgusting and disturbing to think that we are paying for them to live the high life whilst we do not even get enough nachos. Not enough entertainment. Not enough anything for what we pay.

Hollywood destroying comic book stories and characters.

I wanted to write about how the movie industry is a money making disgrace.

I like stories. Good stories. Stories that can hold my attention. It takes a really good story to hold my attention. And being engrossed in a good story can really take your imagination to new places.

Good characters. Characters that you can love and hate. A good actor or a well written character can make you feel a lot of different emotions. Not just love and hate. You can follow a character. Even being able to relate to a character can be really beneficial towards yourself. Seeing characteristics of yourself in actors playing characters can make you feel less...weird.

On that note, I like comic book stories. Not that I see myself in being an actual superhero but I really like the ideas and the stories that comics can create tat nothing else can. They are unique, interesting and the possibilities are endless. Not only that but a lot of them actually address real issues that occur in life. Strangely, I'm not one of those people who stares at the art for ages, but I linger on the dialogue more. Which I know doesn't make sense as the pictures are obviously a massive part of comics. I told you I was weird.

Its all about the storytelling and I guess in that respect that I could just read normal books. But the pictures don't completely go amiss. They obviously give the actual story more depth. I just prefer the storytelling and the actual characters.

It is about Good v Evil. Ethical and moral justice. Victims of bullying are known to like comics more.
It is about psychological undertones and overtones.

In the past ten years or so, the film industry are taking these stories and characters and quite frankly ruining them. RUINING them. Characters are becoming pathetic. Stories are now really cheesy to cater for the family audience. It's not necessarily about telling a good story, it is about how much money can be made from telling any story at all and using so many special effects that there really is no need for actors anymore. But to make money there is. You have to use actors to market the movie. Even if the actors/acting is bad. It is all about cashing in.

Take Robert Downey JR for example. An absolutely TERRIBLE actor. Awful. But he was the highest paid actor in 2014, earning an insanely stupid amount of money. $75 million dollars. That equates to just under £50 million pounds. £50 million pounds in just one year for this absolutely terrible actor is sickening. He is popular, he is marketable. He was Iron Man. I suppose Iron Man is a pretty pathetic boring character so why not get a pathetic boring actor to play him?

The movie industry just does not have too many original ideas and comics have endless stories and characters that are becoming more known to the mass audience that seem to crave to want to watch more and more of these superhero movies. If the market is there, the film industry can cash in. But this is not a new thing .This has been happening for years-The Punisher (twice, the second one was better but was nothing to the comics and still pretty bad), Hulk (twice again and both were terrible), Captain America which was a joke, The fantastic four who were all played by horrid bland pathetic actors as is The Avengers. There are more. The list goes on. The characters are getting ruined and now Hollywood are not satisfied by that. They are wanting to ruin the actual stories too.

The comic book graphic novel called "Civil War".

A great story about the government wanting all superheroes to register to work for the them after an unfortunate incident occurs without their secret identities anymore. Some superheroes are for this and want to register. Some are rightly against this and refuse. This leads to Iron Man working with the government with a team of superheroes against Captain America who goes underground with a team of superheroes still fighting the good fight whilst keeping from being captured by Iron Man. Hollywood have decided to take this great story and turn it into a movie. The bland Robert Downey Jr will of course be playing Iron Man. The movie will of course rake in millions and millions of pounds to the overpaid actors (and people moan about footballers getting paid too much), 

It will give everyone something to talk about until the next story they decide to ruin.

I am not sure if I will be able to watch Civil War. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for a lot of other people who seem to thrive on special effects, awful one liners and just bad acting in general.

Morals, principles and all that stuff.

It's no secret that when you do something that you may think is good gets thrown back in your face. If not straight away, then soon. It's no secret that doing the right thing or what you think is the right thing gets you nowhere.

It's also no secret that there are people out there that ache everyday because of these things and these are good people who can't understand the injustice of this universe. They can't take the things that occur in life and so they choose to abandon life. And this to me is understandable.

Imagine thinking that you want to say and do the right thing and then constantly getting screwed for it. How would this make a person feel?

I'm not saying I'm right all the time. That would be foolish. Nobody can possibly ever be right all the time. It's impossible. But when you try to say and do the right thing and nothing still works out then what hope is there?

As horrific and as sad as it sounds, I'm one of those people that does believe that the world would be a beautiful place without people. I'm not saying that I'd like to wake up one morning to find that the rest of humanity had been eradicated. That would be sick. But what I am saying is that it's people and the choices people make that make me want to cease to exist.

But what can you do? I try. Trying isn't enough. I'm not perfect but I do always constantly want to better myself. Not for myself but for people I care about.

Unfortunately as stated, some people don't see this. Or they do see it but don't realise how much of a good quality this is in a person. And that's coming from someone who is never positive about himself ever.

I'm not saying that I'm a good person. That's not for me to say. Or to judge.

I've spent most of my life doubting myself. I've spent most of my life looking in the mirror and almost hating what looks back at me.

But today I think about things. More so than I normally do.

Screw the horrific animals that bullied me. Screw the three people who I borrowed money to in college to never get it back. Screw the bastard who was being chased by drug dealers who I helped. Screw the people who I've worked for who have done nothing but to TRY and take advantage of me. Screw the fact that my lady doesn't care that I don't speak to people who bad mouthed her. Screw that I walked home at 3am after a whole day of working just for her. Screw that I stood at the end of her street next to a frigging post box when she was feeling down in the hope that she may give me the opportunity to make her feel better.

No. These things are things that don't matter. They never have.

I've been trembling a lot. Since my father passed away 797 days ago, I've been trembling a lot when bad things happen. And as much as I disagreed with a lot of the things he said and/or did, at the end of the day, he still tried to say and do what he thought at the time was right.

And where did that get him? He is dead.

Where does it get anyone? Nowhere.

But as strange as this may sound, I do not want to change. I will still try and say and do what I think and believe is right at that time.

Regardless of the consequences.

Why I have never voted.

With there being so much injustice in the world and wrongdoings, voting for a party of people in suits desperate for power may give some people reasons to believe that they may have a voice to change things for the better.

It's never really the case. 

Currently, Britain is being run...sorry, CONTROLLED by the conservative government. 

So what does this mean?

It basically means that the rich get richer. The poor get poorer and living standards for people like myself who are on four hour contracts are not going to get better. They may even get worse. 

Apparently, the government may well be able to now give the police new powers to monitor internet browsing history and instant messenger chats. For example, Whatsapp conversations-this applying even though you are not suspected of having committed a crime. Bedroom tax for homes with spare bedrooms, under 21s not getting housing benefit blah blah blah. The last time the conservatives were in power, there were about three and a half million people unemployed. Suicide rates were high. If there is a gap between the rich and the poor, it isn't down to this government to sort out. Do this party deserve a vote?

Oh and now that the conservatives are back in power-fox hunting will be legal. Yes that is correct. You read right. FOX HUNTING WILL BE LEGAL. A nice hobby to help pass the time for the upper class dingbats. Hunting foxes.  

"But wait", I hear you cry whilst reading this-"WAIT". Your title says that you don't vote? Why? Why oh why didn't you help stop this barbaric bunch of dumbos from killing those poor foxes?!

I will get to that later. First of all, I want to point out that Britains' biggest selling newspaper is The Sun. As depressing as that is, it is true. And The Sun-is a conservative newspaper. It's a cheap terrible newspaper that working class people buy-who correct me if I am wrong, but aren't working class people supposed to be voting Labour?! Money can be taken from us whilst they decide on which public services to spend least on as well as which holidays would be best taken with our money?

Labour will save the working class people! So some people believe.

No they won't. No they have never. The recession began. The mass immigration. The death of people.

Now I know people who don't have money shouldn't spend money that they don't have. Credit. Also there have been a lot of shop closures. But a massive increase in bookmakers as I have stated before. Especially in poorer areas. Didn't Labour want to make parts of Britain super casinos? There are more bookmakers than banks and pubs (pubs that are open and in business) combined.

I have no problem with people coming in from anywhere in the world if they are going to make this country a better place. But some are not doing that. Some are only here for benefits.

Innocent people dying by being sent to places like Iraq to get involved in conflict that has nothing to do with us.

Do this party deserve a vote?

What about Ukip/BNP? "Let's just all be white and have nothing multicultural in our lives because we're too thick to embrace culture". Does this racist, sexist EVERYTHING-ist party deserve my vote?

Liberal democrats? Isn't their leader also a buffoon? Not as much of a buffoon as idiots above but still. No buffoons will get my vote.

Running out of parties. What about the green party? Abolishing the army, legalising drugs and encouraging people to stop eating meat. Encouraging right now, but if they came into power I bet my lamb chops they would ban meat products. I like lamb chops.

I won't ever vote. There are too many lies and different ways for the men in suits to earn our trusts based on a load of crap that they come out with. During my life, I have seen this country seemingly go on a rapid decline. Nobody seems to know what to do. They do not have a clue.

Now, the conservatives have promised that the minimum wage is going up and by 2020, it will have gone up from the current £6:51p an hour to £9 an hour. Conveniently, this £9 an hour  being pledged just after what will be the next general election.

That is all well and good. But what about the small businesses who don't make that much money? How will they pay their staff unless they raise their own prices which could lose them customers.

I don't know who it was, but someone from some political party said that they wanted to put the "Great" back into Great Britain. Britain hasn't been "great for a very long time and the last time time it was, were they not dividing and conquering with their British empire? Did they not kill and torture people? In Asia, In Africa, in a lot of places. There never seems to be much mention of this in the media or press. Not that we should live in the past, but it seems that there is always talk about other leaders from other countries in history who caused death and misery. But Britain did the same.

Anyway, back to the point and on the subject of divide and conquer-it still seems like that is going on now. For example, in a lot of jobs-instead of giving one person an eight hour shift, they would give two people two four hour shifts. People end up doing whatever they can just to get hours and just to work. To survive. Can you imagine if every worker in all the retail stores in Britain decided to go on strike because of this? They would have to do something. But people are too scared. If people went on strike the big companies would just find other suckers to work for them on the pittance pay which is currently £6:51p an hour.

But the funny thing about it is people who are in full time jobs and earn an amazing wage-THEY are the ones who go on strike! Train drivers, doctors and teachers! The latter I am training to become. Strikes?! Why?? Well for the teachers, it had something to do with cutting their pensions or something along those lines. Can you imagine people moaning about that?? One the one hand you have a retail assistant on a four hour contract who barely gets by in a miserable job that can lead to depression. On the other hand, you have a teacher who is doing a job that they probably love to do for a nice decent full time wage who then goes on strike! Unbelievable. The retail assistant goes to work and gets abused by customers. The teacher letting down their students by not being there to teach them. Is this what it has come to?

A few weeks ago, it rained for four days straight. The local council sent out people to water the plants in the parks and the bus station. This is no joke. This actually happened. They probably had the date planned beforehand to water the plants and decided to go ahead and do it even after four days of rain. Again-unbelievable.

I have worked most of my adult life. Apart from a total of about three years when I couldn't find any work-not through lack of trying. It takes me an hour and a half to get to work and an hour and a half to get back. Sometimes more. A retail job. A minimum wage job. A fight to get as many hours as possible job.

Then there are people out there who don't work at all. Who just can't be bothered to get a job. These people have houses. Cars. They go on holidays! They have more money than I have or get. And this is what the country is. Things are not going to change no matter who gets the power as this has been the case for years. The thought of voting and then feeling responsible for the way things are is too sickening for me to comprehend.

People have their own lives to live

I know and I understand that nobody cares.

But today at this moment in time, I find myself alone. 

It's been two years since my dad passed away.

People have their own lives to live. I am a part of these lives.

But are these people a part of my own life? My own feelings?

I don't think so. I shouldn't expect them to be so.  

Rest in peace dad. I'm sorry for being useless.  

Idiots (Ignorance part two)

A few weeks ago, someone I know told me that she got 'pelted with eggs'. She was surprised and in total disbelief:-

"I don't understand. Why would they do such a thing??!!"

I was surprised myself. Not because of the actual incident. But because of the fact that she was surprised that this had happened to her. What I then said surprised myself but only after a few minutes after thinking about it:-

"I've been pelted with eggs numerous times. Why are you so surprised?"

The fact that it had never happened to her and it was the first time must have been quite shocking to her. The reason I was surprised with what I said was because I then told her that I EXPECT to get pelted with eggs.

That when I am walking the streets and I see a car drive past and the window is down, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if eggs were thrown.

That is the "surprising" and shocking world that we live in.

I tried to explain to her how ignorant some people are.

They aren't pelting me with eggs because of what I look like, or how I dress, or what music I like.

They are pelting me with eggs because of who I am. They are attacking me for who I am. But they don't know who I am. They know nothing. Yet they still do it. Why? It may never be known. Just like they will never know me. And that is a shame.

But what I do know is that the sooner you get used to this kind of behaviour, the less upset you will get about it. It's not right for this to happen-of course it's not right.

But this is the world that we live in.

With much worse things happening around us.